Ello is a brand new social network whose USP is that it will never sell users’ data to third parties and it will stay ad free even once it becomes bigger. This is quite a statement to make as even Twitter now has adverts which anyone can pay for. I personally am noticing a big difference in sponsored tweets which I would never be interested in. So how will they make money, I hear you say. This is the catch - they aren’t entirely sure.
One idea already implemented is a t-shirt shop on the website. The concept is that if you like the simple design of Ello you buy a t-shirt and spread the news, but it’s likely there will be premium features also which you have to pay a small monthly fee for. Maybe £1 a month for private messaging? I’m pulling figures out of thin air but it’s a possibility.
At the moment Ello is invite only but it’s expanding really quickly and is getting a lot of media coverage from its bold statement. I can see it growing much more rapidly if it keeps its momentum up though because each user has about 20 invites.
It is a bit of a cross between Facebook and Twitter; you can have a public or private profile and your profile features all the functionalities you’d expect. You have a friends feed which is full of updates from anyone you follow, a ‘noise’ section which is additional people you might be interested in, notifications (symbolised by lightning), a ‘discover' section and ‘invite’ as standard options. One feature I particularly like is that you can hide the horizontal navigation away so that you can give all your attention to the content in the news feed. This is similar to using Facebook on a mobile but having it on desktop makes for a really clutter-free approach.
You also have your regular profile picture (on Ello, in the shape of a circle - they call it an avatar) and a header image (1800 x 1013), both of which you can drag and drop a picture straight into. When looking at your news feed it’s laid out in Tumblr & Pinterest blog-style columns which are full of visuals. With the neutral design of Ello, the visuals that users post really stand out and look great.
Ello uses the Twitter style ‘@’ tags for usernames and you tag people in a post in the same way. There are also some really easy settings for privacy, notifications and an NSFW filter so that you can chose not to have these posts in your news feed. Ello state in their welcome section that they want users to be able to use Ello as they please, but equally they respect boundaries that others might have and so these settings reflect that view.
For me, one of Ello’s biggest advantages is its user experience. Everything is really clean and simple - you couldn’t get lost on Ello if you tried. Logos and text are all clear and easy to read and the spacious interface means the content posted by your friends and the people you follow looks great and you can read it with no distractions.
There are a few drawbacks however. At the moment, Ello doesn’t have a big userbase, I’m probably the only one in my group of friends that uses Ello. It’s not really suitable for a teenage audience right now as services like Facebook and Snapchat are still incredibly popular amongst that age demographic. Teenagers are usually the ones who drive social networks forward to be incredibly popular. Unless (like Twitter) your target audience is anyone and everyone, Ello may struggle to get the usership they need to achieve their goal.
If you have any questions about ‘Ello’ or you’d like to give it a go yourself, get in touch by emailing info@cosmic.org.uk or give us a call in the office on 0845 094 6108.